Shmuel Gerber

No need to suppose: 48:12 "Exceptions to the rule that minutes are approved at the next regular meeting (or at the next meeting within the session) arise when the next meeting will not be held within a quarterly time interval, when the term of a specified portion of the membership will expire before the start of the next meeting, or when, as at the final meeting of a convention, the assembly will be dissolved at the close of the present meeting. In any of these cases, minutes that have not been approved previously should be approved before final adjournment, or the assembly should authorize the executive board or a special committee to approve the minutes."

No. This question answers itself.

I think this may be where we disagree. It is not the adjournment previously set that is being taken up early. Rather, a new, earlier adjournment, is being moved.

Well, actually a motion for the previous question might conflict with the motion to limit debate, but nonetheless it is in order (and requires a 2/3 vote).

I'm with you so far. Now you've lost me. You just said that the subsidiary motion to limit debate was adopted. There is no actual suspension of the rules involved. There is no order suspending the rules and closing debate; there is only an order closing debate under the rules for that motion. I can think of no rule in RONR that precludes a motion to adjourn in this scenario. No. The motion to adjourn does not conflict with the motion limiting debate. Neither would a motion to postpone indefinitely, for the previous question, to lay on the table, or to take a recess.

I disagree. Where the rules specifically provide that the motion to adjourn is not privileged and cannot be made when another motion is pending, it would not be in order to raise it as a question of privilege.

What does the approval of the minutes have to do with the price of tea in China (or the proper announcement of the ballot vote)?

See RONR (12th ed.) 21:6(1)n5.

Robert's Rules does not use the term "recall" regarding a motion. If no quorum was present when the vote was taken, then the motion did not legitimately fail, regardless of its content. If the chair declared that the motion failed, a member of the board (or of the assembly that the board is subordinate to) may raise a point of order to that effect, if there is some reason to do so. Presumably there was a rationale for making the motion to begin with, so that its adoption would have made some difference. However, it's likely that the motion's failure would not make much difference so that, after the board meeting ends, the situation is practically the same as if the motion had not been made.

To better understand paragraph 23:2(1), it would probably be helpful to also read the entire subsection Conditions Under Which Incidental Motions Take Precedence over, or Yield to, Other Motions (6:18–22), and especially this: "… incidental motions have no rank among themselves and cannot be assigned positions within the order of precedence of motions, although they have individual relationships to that order which are described in the sections dealing with these motions. With the exception of a Division of the Assembly, incidental motions yield to the privileged motions and generally yield to the motion to Lay on the Table, unless the incidental motion arose out of a motion of higher rank than the one to which it would otherwise yield … "In connection with motions that can be incidental to motions of any rank (such as Point of Order, Appeal, Suspend the Rules, Motions Relating to Voting, and certain types of Requests and Inquiries), whenever it is stated that one of these motions yields to “all motions” above a certain rank, the incidental motion nevertheless does not yield to any motion ranking below the one out of which it arises. For example, “A Point of Order yields to the motion to Lay on the Table, and to all privileged motions.” This statement is true without qualification if the point of order is in connection with a motion ranking lower than Lay on the Table (that is, a main motion or any other subsidiary motion); but a point of order arising from a motion to Recess would yield only to the two higher-ranking privileged motions—to Adjourn and to Fix the Time to Which to Adjourn."

Whether the point of order is debatable or not (and in this case it's not), it yields to any privileged motion that is in order at the time according to the order of precedence of motions (based on the other motions that are pending besides the point of order). So unless a privileged motion to adjourn or to fix the time to which to adjourn is already pending (or the assembly is engaged in voting or verifying a vote, or there is some other reason a motion to adjourn is not in order), a privileged motion to adjourn would take precedence over the point of order and would be disposed of first.

If an organization has adopted Robert's Rules of Order as the parliamentary authority, then it should follow every rule verbatim and word for word, including the parts that say there is often no need to follow every rule verbatim and word for word: - "In cases where there seems to be no opposition in routine business or on questions of little importance, time can often be saved by the procedure of unanimous consent, or as it was formerly also called, general consent. Action in this manner is in accord with the principle that rules are designed for the protection of the minority and generally need not be strictly enforced when there is no minority to protect. Under these conditions, the method of unanimous consent can be used either to adopt a motion without the steps of stating the question and putting the motion to a formal vote, or it can be used to take action without even the formality of a motion." (4:58) - "There is no acceptable alternative to parliamentary procedure for the conduct of business in a deliberative assembly; yet many presiding officers try to get along with a minimum of knowledge. This approach inevitably results in signs of unsureness. … The president should never be technical or more strict than is necessary for the good of the meeting. Good judgment is essential; the assembly may be of such a nature, through its unfamiliarity with parliamentary usage and its peaceable disposition, that strict enforcement of the rules, instead of assisting, would greatly hinder business. But in large assemblies where there is much work to be done, and especially where there is likelihood of trouble, the only safe course is to require a strict observance of the rules." (47:14–19)

Yes, but amendments to the resolved clauses are considered first.

At least until Saturday. Then there's a full moon and I can howl again. 🙂

If you have to make the argument sillier to make the case, then it's a weak argument. However, to take up one of these points, if a rule provides that adoption of a particular type of motion requires a three-fourths vote during a waxing moon, a two-thirds vote during a waning moon, and unanimous consent during a full moon, I do not see any reason to conclude that this vote requirement may be suspended at any time by a two-thirds vote because no "minority of a particular size" is protected by the rule. On the contrary, the size of the minority protected by the rule is very particular. And by the way, for quite a while the rule in the U.S. House of Representatives was: "A rule may not be suspended except by a vote of two-thirds of the Members voting, a quorum being present. The Speaker may not entertain a motion that the House suspend the rules except on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays and during the last six days of a session of Congress."

No, you've got it right. You said, "whenever 4 positions are to be filled, you [SG] are saying that the rule protects a minority of the same size as if a 4/5 vote were required for election, since a vote of this size will guarantee election." I had read "a vote of this size" to mean a 4/5 vote, but I see now that's not what you meant. I have indeed been saying that the vote of a minority of the same size protected by a rule requiring a 4/5 vote for election (i.e., more than 1/5) is protected by J.J.'s rule that "The ABC Committee shall consist of four members of the assembly, elected by cumulative voting," since a vote of this size (or rather, this particular size 🙂) will guarantee election of one candidate supported by this minority. But now that you've made me think about it some more, that is actually understating the case a bit. A rule requiring a 4/5 vote for election provides no protection at all to a minority of exactly 1/5, whereas cumulative voting in an election of 4 seats gives a minority of 1/5 the ability to guarantee either election of the minority's candidate or a stalemate (no election).

This argument seems a bit hair-splitting to me, and I don't find it persuasive. The rule protects a minority of a particular size voting in a particular way. If a minority of that size votes in that way, they get what they want because of this rule, regardless of how anyone else votes. If you take away the rule, then the majority can override their ability to do so, even if they were to coordinate to ensure their desired outcome — which obviously they have the right to do when protected by the rule.

Almost. If I understand the math correctly myself: I don't think a 4/5 vote will guarantee election of all four seats of the majority's choice, but a vote of greater than 1/5 will guarantee election of one seat of the minority's choice. If the factions were split exactly 4/5 to 1/5, then the best the majority could do to prevent election of the minority's choice (and vice versa) is to create a tied vote so that no one is elected. I think the math will be easier with 100 voters instead of 120, so suppose there are 100 voters. A faction of 20 members cast all their votes for candidate A: 20*4=80. Now, in order to defeat candidate A, the rest of the voters must all (collectively) cast at least 80 votes for each of four other candidates. But in order to have enough votes for that, they also cannot cast more than 80 for any one, because then there would be less than 80 for another. So either the vote would be tied all around, or candidate A gets a seat.

In 40:11, RONR states, "Before the presiding officer calls a meeting to order, it is his duty to determine, although he need not announce, that a quorum is present." And in section 48, the only suggestion that the minutes should explicitly reflect the presence of a quorum is with respect to entering the names of members present during a roll call vote. And while the form of the minutes is just a sample, I think it would be odd to contend that if these were real minutes taken and approved by the assembly, there cannot be a presumption that the actions were taken in the presence of a quorum because that fact is not noted. All in all, it seems pretty clear that RONR does not generally require or even suggest that the presence of a quorum be noted in the minutes. I am aware that many people are not happy with this fact, but that does not change the fact.

Personally the last is my favorite. I don't like the idea of having to agree to disagree, as I can disagree without anyone's agreement. 🙂

Sometimes people agree to agree, sometimes they disagree to agree, and sometimes they agree to disagree. And in this case we may have people disagreeing to disagree.

In the example initially given in this thread, the rule protects a minority of greater than one fifth. If the number of members on the committee were different, then this fraction would be different. But since this committee is of a particular size, and is even stated that way in the rule, then the minority protected is also of a particular size. (I'm not conceding that if the number of seats varied then there would not be any minority of a particular size protected in each case where the rule is applied; but where the number of seats is fixed, as here, then I think there certainly is a minority of a particular size protected by the rule.) If there is a problem with the "greater than" part of this formulation, then the same problem would exist with a rule requiring a four-fifths vote for adoption of a motion, which protects not a minority of one fifth, but a minority of greater than one fifth. This is much in the same way that the requirement of a 2/3 vote to close debate on a motion protects a minority of greater than 1/3 but not of 1/3.

I won't purport to read the mind of 25:2(7), but my answer is yes.

In my opinion it's not helpful to be too particular about the meaning of particular. 🙂 I would note that in RONR, the rule describing cumulative voting itself depends on the number of seats to be filled: "In this form of voting, each member is entitled to cast one vote for each position, so that if, for example, three directors are to be elected, each member may cast three votes..." (46:43)

I don't know where the number 5/24 is coming from. My formula to find the minority protected by a rule allowing cumulative voting is that it's the size of the minority that is guaranteed the ability, by coordinating their votes, to elect one candidate. This number is anything more than 1/(N+1), where N is the number of seats being elected. For 2 seats, it would be a minority greater than 1/3; for 3 seats, it would be greater than 1/4; and for 4 seats, greater than 1/5. (And for the trivial case of 1 seat, it's more than 1/2, which is not a minority.)